Read on Twitter
seeing some welcome pushback against the "wholesome games" label, and it's reminding me of this @JFriedhoff essay, which was pushing back against the idea that all personal games have to be glum & melancholy https://medium.com/@jfriedhoff/playing-with-resistance-a483b19d4fe7
my take is that: "positive vibes only!!" people are just as likely to do shitty things as other people, and are often worse because they won't talk about their shitty behaviour or deal with it. you can draw the parallel to games p easily.
which is not to say that games tagged as wholesome are bad? but it's just an aesthetic. and as an aesthetic, i quite like it? i'm more of a fan of flat pastels than gritty brown (and it's easier to make that work on a low budget)
mainly i am glad that there's a market segment that connects with players that is smaller than all of "indie games". because that was too large to be particularly useful. it's great marketing, and that's important because i want people to get paid for making their games.
but of course, like most successful marketing, it's going to erase a lot of the complexities and interesting tensions within the actual games. probably bad if all you're trying to do is make a wholesome game? but luckily, most games have higher aspirations than that.
in conclusion: play Dépanneur Nocturne, it's great https://ko-op.itch.io/dep-nocturne
oh, wait, also: there's a pretty clear comparison to be drawn to the UK's embrace of hygge, and the inherent ideology it carries with it https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/nov/22/hygge-conspiracy-denmark-cosiness-trend
if i had seen this thread before, i might've just retweeted it rather than writing anything myself: https://twitter.com/hannahnicklin/status/1265428360005668870
